NEWS ANALYSIS, NOVEMBER 17, 2001.

In the last few weeks, more people are joining the opposition movement in Vietnam. Most of them are Communist Party members who turned against the Communist regime during the last decade. Protests from inside the Party are the leaders' greatest concerns and also a deadly threat to the survival of the Party.

Some of the new figures defecting to the opposition are Nguyen Van Minh, Nguyen Chinh Ket, Le Chi Quang, Tran Khue, Dang Viet Son...

Nguyen Van Minh is a Catholic lawyer, a resident of Nam Dong Parish, Hanoi City. After the Rev. Nguyen Van Ly, the priest of An Truyen, Thua Thien province, stood trial at a kangaroo court held surreptitiously in Hue and sentenced to 13 years in prison, Lawyer Minh has been one of many intellects who voiced their protests against the monstrous and unfair trial.

Besides his overt criticism, Minh also sent an open letter dated Oct 20, 2001 to the Bishops' Council of the Vietnam Catholic Church, asking the council to lift a hand to support Father Ly's struggle. In the letter, Mr. Minh expressed his belief that the leaders of the Church would do all they may to legally protect the outspoken priest who has bravely stood up for the ultimate rights to religious freedom and the democracy of Vietnam.

In Saigon, another voice came from Professor Nguyen Chinh Ket who also protests and has sent similar letters to the bishops of the Vietnam Catholic Church, asking them to have an appropriate action against the religious oppression of the Communist regime.

A Buddhist monk, the Ven. Thich Khong Tanh from Saigon, strongly criticized the unfair verdict. Meanwhile, many other Catholic priests reacted accordingly as well.

Communist authorities have dispatched many Public Security agents to all over the country to meet with members of the Catholic community to investigate people's reaction to the trial of Father Ly. They were confronted by local clergy and parishioners who raised outright objections to the sentence given to Father Ly.

The two priests, Rev. Phan Van Loi and Rev. Nguyen Huu Giai, who are confident associates of Rev. Nguyen Van Ly and great supporters of his, are under close watch of local Public Security departments. They anticipate that they could be arrested any time.

Last week the two priests managed to smuggle a message to their supporters in and out of Vietnam. In the short letter, they promise their friends that in case they are arrested, they will not say or write any word in interrogations at the PS departments or at the court in spite of tortures or being left to death without food and drink.

They forewarned that anything to be announced by the Communist government as their "confessions" or "pleas of guilty" must not be taken as statements of their own. They also vow that they will stay in the country if they are free to decide where to live.

In a political tactic, the prominent dissidents, retired Colonel (North Vietnam Army) Pham Que Duong and Mr. Tran Khue announce that they are going to found an anti-corruption association . In an open applying letter dated September 2, 2001, Pham Que Duong requested license for the so-called The People's Anti-Corruption Association. They also call on their friends and comrades in the Communist Party and its Army, veterans, civil servants, intellects and other Vietnamese people to join his organization.

A few days later, Duong and others of his group were detained for interrogation. They angrily protested the arrests, citing an article in the Hanoi 1992 Constitution asserting the freedom of speech. Without a legal charge, they were released but have been under closer surveillance since.

Mr. Duong is also one of many other veteran officers and ranking Party members who publicly demands the abolishment of the notorious Decree 31/CT which allows the Public Security chief at district level and higher to imprison any citizen without trial by a court of justice. He and his comrades also request that Article 4, Hanoi 1992 Constitution be abolished. This article affirms that the Vietnam Communist Party is the only party that is vested with full ruling power over the Vietnamese nation.

Le Chi Quang, another young man who has recently joined the opposition movement, and his family members are under intensive harassment and intimidation imposed by local Communist authorities only because of his opinions of the 1992 Constitution. Although the Party and its government call for public opinions on the amendments, only articles that the Party Politburo decided to be amended could be discussed. Le Chi Quang's proposals are not in these permitted sections. He also expresses his deep concerns regarding the agreements on the common borders between Vietnam and China.

As to the struggle for freedom of the press and freedom of assembly, before Pham Que Duong's application, on September 2, 2000, Mr. Nguyen Vu Binh, the well-known reporter of the Journal of Communism (the monthly Party's main theoretical journal), had applied for permission to establish an opposition party, the Democratic Party. The petition has never been responded, and the applicant incurred lots of troubles.

Three years ago, the retired North Vietnam Army General Tran Do applied for a license to publish a newspaper and was bluntly rejected.

Those who have applied for licenses to form associations or to publish a paper have certainly known that their requests would never be approved. Their applications were made for a sheer purpose: to let people know their political viewpoint concerning human and civil rights. In their letters of application and their statements to the public, they made outright criticism against the Communist regime at almost every aspect.

Following the call of the dissidents, scores of medium ranking Party cadres have publicized their opinions that have been muted for the last half century. They attacked the Party leadership, accused the leaders of numerous policies and failures, particularly of their top-to-bottom system of corruption.

Moreover, they openly demanded the Party seniors to explain dozens of mysteries that have been kept secret for the last 55 years.

The mysteries include alleged plots to assassinate Ho Chi Minh while he was in South China for medical treatment in 1968, and other questions relating to the deaths of Communist Generals Nguyen Binh in the early 1950s, and Hoang Van Thai, Le Trong Tan, Doan Khue in the last decade, and most recently, former Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach.

The protesting letters even call on General Vo Nguyen Giap and Mr. Vu Ky, personal secretary of Ho Chi Minh, to disclose all state mysteries they have known (in the 70-year history of the Communist Party). Otherwise, they will be condemned by the future generations.

Besides attacks on religious freedom records, the opposition also turned its spearhead to another battle. The dissidents are raising questions on the negotiations with Beijing about the borders between Vietnam and China. According to sources from Hanoi, the Vietnam Communist Party leaders have yielded to the Communist Chinese hundreds of square kilometers of territorial land and waters of Vietnam.

The sources alleged that the concession was made at a meeting between Vietnam Communist Party former General Secretary Le Kha Phieu and his Chinese counterpart Jiang Je-Min in 1999 in Beijing. On October 25, 2000, to implement the concession, the two governments formally signed the Agreement for demarcation of the Gulf of Tonkin.

Under the Vietnam Communist regime, no detail in sensitive agreements with foreign countries have ever been made public. Therefore, the Vietnamese public know very little about how much of their fatherland has been given up to China.

So far, Hanoi keeps silent over the agreement contents though party leaders have tried some indirect explanations, lightly hinting at the matter to justify the concession. But public suspicion seems to be growing. In the last few weeks, many voices of opponents that include Le Chi Quang and Nguyen Thanh Giang and a lot of retired Party ranking members have been raised to protest what they branded as "selling the father land."

Meanwhile the Hoa Hao Buddhist devotees continue their appeal for religious freedom. On November 9, 2001, the Ven. Vo Thanh Liem, 57, went on a hunger strike to protest relgious oppression. A report from Vietnam said he cut off a finger-size slice of flesh from his thigh and threw it at the local Communist officials when they came to arrrest him.

Obviously, Hanoi leaders' aggressive actions were deliberately taken right after the Bilateral Trade Agreement had been signed by President G. W. Bush. To many Vietnamese, Hanoi leaders are showing their defiance of the demand for better human rights records and freedoms by Washington and other related international institutions.

One thing is certain: the more oppressive measures are imposed on the Vietnamese people, the more honest party members would secede the party to join the cause of the opposition.

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